Thai Police Get Death Penalty in Drug-War Killing

A Thai court yesterday sentenced three police officers to death for killing a teenager during a much-criticised drug crackdown by the government eight years ago.

The officers were found guilty yesterday of killing a 17-year-old student in Kalasin province in the northeast in 2004 and moving his body to conceal the cause of death.

The killing took place under former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s government, which declared a crackdown on the drug trade to stem an influx of methamphetamine. Rights activists allege it resulted in more than 2,000 extrajudicial killings.

The Criminal Court also sentenced a former deputy police district commander to life in prison for the boy’s murder and the former district commander was given a seven-year jail term for abuse of authority. One police officer was acquitted.

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Comments

3 Comments

gutrod on
August 5, 2012 5:13 pm

To carry out the war on drugs is probably a prerequisite to receiving American aid dollars. It would be more acceptable if they were to declassify cannabis. The whole world knows that it is basically harmless, everyone except our governments which have their own agenda. Most opioid s available in N.A. are produced by large pharmaceutical manufacturer’s who profit from misery.

gutrod on
August 5, 2012 5:11 pm

To carry out the war on drugs is probably a prerequisite to receiving American aid dollars. It would be more acceptable if they were to declassify cannabis. The whole world knows that it is basically harmless, everyone except our governments which have their own agenda. Most opioid s available in N.A. are produced by large pharmaceutical manufacturer’s who profit from misery.

Paul Pot on
August 1, 2012 2:14 pm

These guys are scapegoats for a massive atrocity that was committed in Thailand.
Prime minister Thaksin had a great idea, he would declare a war on drugs and draw up a blacklist of names of people he didn’t like, namely the people who openly criticised him, uni students, professors, journalists, lawyers anyone. No drugs on them, just throw some pills on the ground by the body, take a photo, proof of crime worthy of summary execution. Police received twenty thousand baht, $700 US per body.
Every imaginable story of horror happened. Men in black would appear on a black bike with no plates and shoot some one in the head a point blank range in front of everyone. It was possible to hire police to settle vendetta’s.
It got so bad the dealers freaked out and had a war amongst themselves.
Some got so afraid they would hand themselves in to give evidence to police only to be shot in the back as they walked away from the police station.
There are rumors of the police going into the northern mountain regions of Thailand, famously known as the golden triangle, and and wiping out entire villages with machine gun fire. These were people who had in the recent past grown opium but some still secretly grew cannabis. Of course the drug war was simply being used as an excuse for ethnic cleansing to free the land for exploitation by corrupt Thai’s.
What happened in Thailand is comparable to what is currently going on in Mexico except it was the police who did the slaughter.
In spite of his crimes there are no international warrants out for Thaksin, he goes unnoticed and even admired by the international community for his tough stance on drugs.
Dictators like Pinochet really were fools compared to this guy. If Pinochet had declared a drug war rather than going for political dissidents he would have been a hero and might even still be living in luxury rather than dying in confinement.
The drug war has every one fooled that this criminal prejudice is some how acceptable because, well, they were druggies after all. People who do drugs have absolutely no rights and any crime can be committed against them as they are just not human.
When the the drug war is finally over we have to remember these crimes and address them in the same way as the disappeared of Argentina or any nation that has experienced crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Because the drug war is a crime against humanity!
Legalize! Apologize! Compensate! Prosecute the perpetrators.